The time is right to revisit and revise the Public Broadcasting Act. A revised and reauthorized act would identify and direct resources to needs that contemporary telecom content providers are not meeting and adjust the allocation of federal appropriations. - Current
"Fertility-related customs have been celebrated in mid-February since pagan times. ... By the 18th century, we see something that begins to resemble modern Valentine's cards. In the 19th century, this evolved to the point where popular ladies' magazines like Harper's Weekly published instructions for readers on how to craft them." - AP
The reason the Babel story matters is not that it happened once but that it happens over and over: We Babelize and de-Babelize. The internet is an engine of both processes. - Wired
"Want to become a signature voice of your troubled nation? Perhaps you need a decades-long exile in California. It worked for Czesław Miłosz, who entered the pantheon of Polish poets thanks to works he wrote mostly in Berkeley," where he spent 40 years and won a Nobel Prize. - Zócalo Public Square
As higher education continues to over-produce PhDs, many have sought an alternative path. This is a new niche of the online info-tainment ecosystem. These intellectual influencers produce content for an audience that they hope will embrace and financially support their work. - 3 Quarks Daily
"The chairman is supposed to maintain the independence of the BBC," observed one insider about Richard Sharp, "but has said publicly it has a liberal bias while facilitating loans to the Prime Minister" — Boris Johnson, who appointed Sharp — "and eating chop suey at Chequers" (Britain's Camp David). - The New Statesman (UK)
Apparently, book lovers have been storing up their pet peeves in the cellar for years, just waiting for someone to ask. Hundreds and hundreds of people responded, exceeding my wildest dreams. - Washington Post
"The tension at the school, now known as Mills College at Northeastern University, reflects the challenges that colleges face when merging campus cultures and balancing the loyalties of students, faculty, and alumni." - The Boston Globe
"Paper became a backbone for the project, and therefore a large part of the soundscore for Data. As dancers move throughout the piece, the sound of crushing paper and whispered numbers of COVID-19 cases in California prisons fills the space." - Los Angeles Times
"Interviews with 20 people with direct knowledge of events at WVPB indicate Amelia Ferrell Knisely's involuntary departure from her position as a part-time reporter was not an aberration but part of a years-long pattern of mounting pressure on the station from Gov. Jim Justice's administration and some state legislators." - NPR
"As well as composing, he has done important work as a conductor (of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw amongst others), teacher (his students include Georg Friedrich Haas), musicologist (creating a complete edition of Berg's Lulu) and administrator (Founding Director, in 1958, of the new music ensemble die reihe). - Gramophone
It seems Pensacola Christian College, where the group had sung before without incident, got wind that some members of the sextet are gay. The Singers say, "This is the first time that anything other than bad weather, the pandemic, or war has caused a cancellation in our 55-year history." - Musical America
On Saturday, enraged at her harsh review of his new piece In the Dutch Mountains (get it?), Hannover State Opera ballet director Marco Goecke yelled at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung critic Wiebke Hüster and smeared her face with feces. The theater has barred him from the premises. - The Daily Beast
"The ticketing systems of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center Inc. remained hobbled for a fifth day Monday following a cyber attack that struck last week. The arts group was able to set up a temporary website portal Feb. 12 with tickets available for some concerts." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
The expansion of short-term rentals has been pricing out Edinburgh residents for years. But the cost of accommodation for festival performers and visitors has soared even more quickly. "Audiences outside of the wealthy, and young audiences in particular," warn the venues, "will be excluded and the Fringe will wither away." - The Scotsman
